How can I profile Python code line-by-line?

rocketmonkeys picture rocketmonkeys · Oct 13, 2010 · Viewed 67.6k times · Source

I've been using cProfile to profile my code, and it's been working great. I also use gprof2dot.py to visualize the results (makes it a little clearer).

However, cProfile (and most other Python profilers I've seen so far) seem to only profile at the function-call level. This causes confusion when certain functions are called from different places - I have no idea if call #1 or call #2 is taking up the majority of the time. This gets even worse when the function in question is six levels deep, called from seven other places.

How do I get a line-by-line profiling?

Instead of this:

function #12, total time: 2.0s

I'd like to see something like this:

function #12 (called from somefile.py:102) 0.5s
function #12 (called from main.py:12) 1.5s

cProfile does show how much of the total time "transfers" to the parent, but again this connection is lost when you have a bunch of layers and interconnected calls.

Ideally, I'd love to have a GUI that would parse through the data, then show me my source file with a total time given to each line. Something like this:

main.py:

a = 1 # 0.0s
result = func(a) # 0.4s
c = 1000 # 0.0s
result = func(c) # 5.0s

Then I'd be able to click on the second "func(c)" call to see what's taking up time in that call, separate from the "func(a)" call. Does that make sense?

Answer

Joe Kington picture Joe Kington · Oct 13, 2010

I believe that's what Robert Kern's line_profiler is intended for. From the link:

File: pystone.py
Function: Proc2 at line 149
Total time: 0.606656 s

Line #      Hits         Time  Per Hit   % Time  Line Contents
==============================================================
   149                                           @profile
   150                                           def Proc2(IntParIO):
   151     50000        82003      1.6     13.5      IntLoc = IntParIO + 10
   152     50000        63162      1.3     10.4      while 1:
   153     50000        69065      1.4     11.4          if Char1Glob == 'A':
   154     50000        66354      1.3     10.9              IntLoc = IntLoc - 1
   155     50000        67263      1.3     11.1              IntParIO = IntLoc - IntGlob
   156     50000        65494      1.3     10.8              EnumLoc = Ident1
   157     50000        68001      1.4     11.2          if EnumLoc == Ident1:
   158     50000        63739      1.3     10.5              break
   159     50000        61575      1.2     10.1      return IntParIO